I’ll admit, there are times when I think it would be much easier to share links, ideas, and posts via something like Google+ or Facebook or Twitter rather than my blog.
Then I take a deep breath and step back. I realize the instant amount of traffic that is offered by those services doesn’t equate to the feeling of having my own space on my own blog.
Just a late night feeling after a long day.
Hadn’t seen this before but lots of good information for those educational institutions pondering Chromebooks and accessories…
CDW Chromebook Solutions Guide.
I tried.
I bought an iPhone 5s in August and did everything I could to try and live in an Apple ecosystem full time (for science).
However, given the choice at the Verizon Store yesterday between an iPhone 6+ and a new Moto X, I took the Android path.
I don’t regret or second guess my decision one bit. I’m typing this now on my Moto X and I’m loving this phone so far. Its quite possibly the best mobile I’ve ever owned (given, it’s only been a day).
Why?
I’m in the Google cloud, I like to tinker, and I don’t like having the same phone as 90% of the people I see around me. Plus, I can run my life and business on this phone in ways that aren’t possible with iOS.
iPhone is great. It’s just not for me.
I like to post these every so often (this one from 2010 is historic) for my own archive uses…
By the way, someone asked me yesterday why I had Lastpass on the front page and what it did as an app. I don’t know any of my passwords as they are all generated by Lastpass. Between that and using 2 factor authentication for everything I can (the Google Authenticator app beside Lastpass on the top row), I feel pretty confident about my security online. Those are two of myost used apps as a result.
Additionally, I’m glad to see services like Mint (my personal accounting app) and Evernote integrate their apps with TouchID on the iPhone so that I have to supply my thumbprint to open them up (Bank of America is releasing their updated app with that integration as well).
Security is my app theme for the end of 2014, evidently.
I’ve had quite a few people ask me which iPhone 6 (the 6 or 6+) they should buy (money aside). Here’s a nice review I’ll be pointing to:
Big vs. bigger: Which iPhone 6 deserves a place in your pocket? | Cult of Mac.
This makes me sad…
The video games studio behind Minecraft is in talks to be taken over by Microsoft, according to reports.It has been suggested that Mojang might sell for more than $2bn (£1.2bn).
via BBC News – Microsoft is ‘set to buy Minecraft developer’.
Very valuable read if you’re interested in the future of the web… time to rethink “Big Internet”
“Big Twitter was great — for a while,” says Jacobs. “But now it’s over, and it’s time to move on.”
These trends, if they are actually trends, seem related. I sense that they both stem from a sense of exhaustion with what I’m calling Big Internet. By Big Internet, I mean the platform- and plantation-based internet, the one centered around giants like Google and Facebook and Twitter and Amazon and Apple.”
Nicholas Carr at http://www.roughtype.com/?p=5010
We were talking about this way back in 2006 (and probably before, but that’s when I started taking notice as the social web started accelerating) and it’s good to see that guardians of the web like Dave Winer are still hard at work thinking and talking (and making apps) about this:
Create systems that are ambivalent about the open or closed web. If I create a tool that’s good at posting content to Facebook and Twitter, it should also post to RSS feeds, which exist outside the context of any corporation. Now other generous and innovative people can build systems that work differently from Facebook and Twitter, using these feeds as the basis, and the investors will have another pile of technology they can monetize.
via How to stimulate the open web.
Go read and use RSS.
I’ve been using a Nexus 4 then the Nexus 5 as my daily mobile device for the last two years as I wanted to learn Android.
I enjoyed the experience for the most part (especially Google Now and apps integration) but I’ve missed the reliability and stability of Apple hardware.
So, I’m back on an iPhone 5s (until the 6 or whatever it’s called next month) for hardware and Google etc for software for now.
Airbnb has released a revision of its site, which is very 2014 modern in its flatness and active card based structure. It’s interesting, but nothing revolutionary or forward looking inside the Silicon Valley bubble. The best aspect is that we’re finally seeing the transition of the cards interface from services to actual physical interactions / products.
The more exceptional part of Airbnb’s visual revision is how they are treating their otherwise lukewarm logo. Airbnb is a confederation of hosts and potential users. While it has to be centralized in terms of the service, listings, etc the very nature of the business is to be democratized. It’s interesting to see their logo embracing that and making the decentralized nature of the business part of its core identity:
“The most revolutionary thing about this brand evolution is we are giving it away to the community,” Mr Conley says. “We are moving from an era of mass production to more individualised production… This is an extension to that. A host with a singular listing in Notting Hill could create their own logo and now we’ve created a micro-entrepreneur with their own brand.”
via Airbnb says its new logo belongs to everyone | Tech blog.